Exceeding And Returning: Analysis Of Shen-Cong Wen's Writing In Modernity

The definition and description about modernity is one of basic questions in Chinese modern literature field. It should be studied completely that how literature was involved in changing society and developed itself, which is the background of the analysis about Shen-CongWen in this paper.Shen-CongWen is a modern writer who was deeply influenced by traditional culture, which includes Confucian, Taoism and minority culture. We name it "XiangChu culture", in which Taoism is in the leading role. Although traditional values in XiangXi are much more consistent than that outside, Shen-CongWen was influenced by modern awareness and then went to Beijing, where he began the life of being a modern writer.Shen-CongWen's initial works are confined by modern narrative background. Neither yearning for the hometown nor sighing of his unlucky life in Beijing deviated from "WuSi" total creation. The contrastive description soon helped him to form the style, which not only embodied writer's adherence to agrestic civilization, but also the transition of angle to view the society change. After the twenties, Shen-CongWen's works changed. He wrote more MiaoZu legends instead of description of reality, such as LongZhu. This showed the puzzlement in writer's deep heart. The initial conformation couldn't keep its superiority any more in the light of modern awareness. Thus Shen-CongWen tried to reproduce the aesthetic XiangXi through retrospect of the legends.In thirties, Shen-CongWen's a series of activities noted his hesitation and contradiction. Though analysis of his standpoint in the debate between "JingPai" and "HaiPai", and in the face of left-wing literature, we found the divided modernity in Chinese modern literature. Different from modern market arts and radical modernity of politics, Shen-CongWen chose another way, which was related with his traditional culture background and meanwhile induced by his modern awareness. Thus Shen-CongWen began to examine his former experiences and wrote a series of works like BianCheng and ShuiYun to express his idea. On the basis of that, Shen-CongWen tried to set up the new belief of life through exceeding of both urban and rural civilizations.To express his conception of new life, Shen-CongWen wrote KanHongLu--adebatable novel and a great number of essays, from which we can suppose Shen-CongWen's traces. It included two points: First, the construction of self-administered personality; Second, the conformity of utilitarism and non-utilitarism in literature. These two points were cornerstones to build new life which is Shen-CongWen's new pursuit. To get that, he also illuminate the "Mei" and "ShenXing". In fact, we found it is return to XiangXi culture.Through the study of Shen-CongWen's works, we can describe the growth of modernity with Chinese features. Its peculiarity was tightly related with the eastern culture and full of viability. Today it is still worth studying and has important referential significance.